Bitcoin Forum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGEppgLna8U&feature=youtu.be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGEppgLna8U&feature=youtu.be)

tl;dr - People are starting to use less regulated non-government backed means of exchange, we're scurred, and somebody should do something about it.

A combination of FUD propaganda and an infomercial for Lookingglass.  The presenters didn't mention the distributed nature of the BTC network at all.  In fact they seemed to imply that BTC=MtGox, a total fallacy.

It's interesting that every mainstream reaction I've seen to BTC is that it's nothing but a tool of criminal activity.

Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations.  That's all you need to know.

This is total bullshit.  Let's get a few definitions out of the way first.

Money laundering: any time you spend or transfer money without the ability for everyone to observe and record your identity and the full details of the transaction.
Illicit activity: what everyone does, every day.  There are so many laws on the books that everyone is a criminal, even the little old lady from Pasadena.

They are really stretching logic to try to make a few points.  They are trying to implicate MtGox in "illicit" activity just because their hosting provider happens to possibly host other sites which may engage in "illicit" activity.  Correlation does not equal causation.  Does anyone know if MtGox is even hosted out of Miami? 

Then they try to impress everyone with some sort of undisclosed algorithm/technology that they use to identify "hot spots" of "illicit" activity.  We're supposed to be impressed with these anuses because of their affiliation and their high-budget forum?  Like Holliday said, they are only afraid of allowing people the ability to engage in private, voluntary exchange.  Wasn't that the manner of all personal exchange 100 years ago?

to the OP:  it's JP Morgan Chase, not Chase Bank.

the difference is non-trivial.  the infamous fair haired boy of Wall St, Jamie Dimon, runs JPM (the former investment bank blessed with US taxpayer backing); you know the bank that employed the famous London Whale, Bruno Iksil, who just happened to run up a multi billion dollar derivative bet to the tune of the just revealed $6B LOSS that they initially deceived the world to be just $2B under the nose of Jamie Dimon who said, "i'm sorry, i knew nothing about it  :-*"  see, these guys make BILLIONS in bonuses for doing just what exactly?  not knowing what is going on but claiming great leadership justifying huge bonuses when things go right but no responsibility when things go wrong?

basically the logic these 2 guys give is this:

"we've identified a virtual currency we don't like.  most of the tx's go thru 5 service providers we've identified.  we've identified the majority of the tx's they process with our proprietary software that has "tagged" them as affiliated with organized crime and money laundering.  you know, the type y'all don't want to be associated with.  never mind how the software determines this.  trust us, you don't like it.  if you want to apply pressure to Bitcoin, stomp on these 5 sites."

turns to the CFR and says "now pay us our fee".

Good to know

The particular server that mtgox.com is in Hollywood, FL

"The server IP Address is 72.52.5.67 and Mtgox.com resides on Prolexic Technologies in Hollywood, FL, United States."

Which is just outside of Ft. Lauderdale.

http://en.utrace.de/ip-address/72.52.5.67

I did nto watch the video yet. Did they use the hosted location as part of their spin?

the guy said it was in "Miami".  you should watch it yourself and tell us what you think.

watching now, noticed this comment; He is correct;  http://en.utrace.de/?query=visa.ca
I'm impressed at how he's complaining at 2:29 that MtGox is hosted as a "den of criminal activity". From my computer the IP address for mtgox.com is 72.52.5.81, while the IP address of visa.ca is 72.52.5.150... They're just both hosted by Prolexic, a very well known anti-DDoS specialist.


from Prolexic's website;
Home » Company » Contact Us

Contact Us
Worldwide headquarters
Hollywood, Florida USA

the question that came to my mind is can Looking Glass associate traffic btwn Silk Road and mtgox?

excluding Silk Road, how can they say Bitcoin is tied to other "criminal activity"?

That's an interesting question. I am fof to spend some time with the family. I'ma dox this LG and their software this evening.


I'm miffed that 'security threat assessment of CHASE' and their buddies new software company could do any kind of finger pointing about AML......

You'd go blind if one were to do any sort of research on various banks and all the ML they have been busted with. One would assume for every one they get busted for, some number must go unknown as well..


JERKS! ;p

bingo

Wow, "threat"

"threat" for who?  ::)

Ridicolous.

Are we sure mtgox can't sue them for all the idiocies they said?

now that's an interesting thought that hadn't even crossed my brainwashed mind.

You got it right, they are based in Hollywood FL. Not in California.

Yes. Less preaching to he choir, more practical ideas and action items (kudos to Gabi).

Just read the executive summery of senate report on HSBC

http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/report-us-vulnerabilities-to-money-laundering-drugs-and-terrorist-financing-hsbc-case-history

If this is what the established banksters are allowed to get away with then bitcoin has nothing to worry about.

=Baby D0X=

lgscout.com  Home of 'Scout Vision' software. The site created by the speakers buddy,
Jason Lewis; http://www.facebook.com/jason.lewis2/friendsft_ref=mni#!/jason.lewis2
that adds really non useful, social, cloud type 'tags' to sites that THEY (the operators of said software) deem to associate with particular sites.

Hosted via hiding behind Cloudflare.com;
home of a LOT of nasty money laundering, hacking and CC doxing sites from the Virgin Islands, Netherlands, etc who use the CloudFlare service as a 'CDN' to hide the true location of their servers!

Some notorius sites hosted behind CloudFlare, include but certainly not limited to;
hosted LulzSec

Currently hosts the website of a professional DDoSer named "Gwapo" in the Philippines.(He explains how you can send him money to take down any website)

A list of sites known to be involved in fraudulant activity who also hide behind CloudFlare can be seen here;
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings/cloudflare.com

One entry;  "03-Aug-2012 23:52 GMT stolen credit-card gang fraud sites: UNIQUEFRAUD.* "

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

scout-vision.com; This is where the servers are truely hosted.

Hosted by Dreamhost, forwards to lgscout.com; Also home to a LOT of nasty
ML and other illicit activities.

Dreamhost is also vulnerable to and does not do much to protect the sites hosted there. Not the ideal place to host any kind of 'legitimate' security business.

http://www.whitefirdesign.com/blog/2012/03/09/dreamhosts-gross-negligence-to-blame-for-recent-hacks/

http://blog.cycle-interactive.com/?p=473

"hacked again - Time to leave Dreamhost?"
https://discussion.dreamhost.com/thread-130909.html

"Backdoor PHP script;
Independent security researcher Denis Sinegubko, who created the Unmask Parasites web scanner, looked at some of the compromised websites given as examples by Zscaler and determined that they all had a backdoor PHP script installed on December 26, long before the DreamHost breach. It might still be an infrastructure-wide compromise though, he said."


Summary;

Yea, I'd take the security advice of the guys giving the presentation very seriously. Being that they so obviously take the time to do their homework........

shame shame. Not really worth digging much more on these guys, as even the least informed pleb can see their agenda written all over their shoddy research.

Money laundering like oh so many "crimes" (drug prohibitions, tax evasion, various regulations, unlicensed practice of whatever, ect ect.) is a very very recently invented "crime" but I don't believe I have to give a rats ass about what some private bank thinks I should or shouldn't do with my money even if they call it money laundering, hence the beauty of Bitcoin.

This is old but interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GiQEECNcZM

And for anything going on in the bitcoin world subscribe this this guys blog or follow his twitter feed.

http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com/

I hope Law Enforcement will see through the veil of lies by the banksters. Bitcoin is a friend to civil harmony. This goes along with the entire milieu of banker crime ignorance. I would rather see these points debated than propagandized.

I lol'ed ;D

Seriously, cbeast, what do you think?

At least we have a backup economy for when the law enforcement workers are unemployed due to budget cuts. Then they will see how they were fooled.

lol, this is hilarious.

These guys are "looking for points where we can leverage pressure". Then they're talking about providers that host a higher amount of "illicit activities" than others. I'm dumbstruck... how did they "look at bitcoin infrastructure" and not spot the decentralized nature of it? They even located 211000 threat tags??? What's that? Bitcoin nodes? Are they planning to nuke them all?

The main problem these guys have is that they ask "where in the internet is this happening?". Wrong question!

It's like chopping down trees trying to catch a bird.

Don't ever expect a man to understand what him getting his paycheck depends on him not understanding.

It would make more sense that they gave such a crappy presentation on purpose. Anyone ignorant enough to think what they were saying had any merit to it is just going to follow what others do anyway. I'm not saying that "bitcoin is a magnet for illicit activity" is untrue, just that these two would only be right on accident based on what they presented. Also they show all the traits of either being up all night making the presentation at the last second, or being hung over.

Cash, especially greenbacks, are the ultimate magnet for illicit activity.  Less traceable than BTC.

It struck me that they don't really have much idea at all how bitcoin works. Some of the things they said betrayed their shallow understanding ... I expect they are somewhere between the "wtf?" phase and the "wow, how can this work," phase.

Give them another 3-6 months and it will be interesting to see what they are presenting. If this guy is some kind of "security expert" for JPM Morgan Chase he is probably first guy who has been officially tasked to get to grips with bitcoin (to me looks like he spends too much time in track pants in front of a bright screen eating cold pizza).

Monetary economics, crypto-financials and p2p networks is a steep learning curve for anybody let alone security consultant for a bank used to living lavish on govt. handouts.

This was also my impression. They got tasked with giving this talk, waited til the last minute to make it thinking it would be easy (just program your algorithm priors a certain way -> evil tags). Then they looked into bitcoin the night before and couldn't stop reading about it. He does say bitcoin is "hosted out of a service provider" though, so maybe hes just hung over.

I refuse to believe standards are so low that people in their positions actually make decisions off research of such low quality. Perhaps I am wrong to think this.

The non-sequiturs in that video are astounding. Insane troll logic and misdirection at its very best.

The scariest thing is, having been to a few of these conferences and events, I know exactly the kind of crowd that he's preaching to, and it's not the masses, it's the power centre people sitting there in the room. They're definitely trying to undermine Bitcoin in a non-public way.

Somehow.

But then why not do it right? They is not a monolithic entity.

No, "they" in this case seems to be JPM. If there were any logical basis to what they were putting forward, I'm sure they would do it right. Or the guy majorly blew it. He was stuttering his way through the whole thing. Maybe he knew better and had to say it anyway.

edit:
bitcoin bitcoin, 113
e-i-e-i-o!

sorry, couldn't resist...

Well if you have been to these is that quality of presentation the norm?


My handle could very well be inspired by that song.

No, it tends to be about big or well-known names talking about their support for the topic at hand, a bit about the impact, a bit about what can be done. Mostly it's assumed that everyone knows what you're talking about and just needs your support. The only place I've seen anyone attempt in-depth technical discussion like this is an internal company meeting about bringing in some new system or change.

Long story short I wouldn't worry yet. If this is the best they can do then they won't be convincing anyone anytime soon, and don't have any ideas for what can be done anyway.

So they fly around the country to hear people bullshit then go party later, sounds like academia. I hope there are at least booths set up by the companies occupied by the actual people who make things happen?

Nope, that's business! ;D


Sure, sometimes. Of all the events I've been to, most tend to go just to enjoy the entertainment and food, and network within the industry, and don't give a toss about the actual topic of discussion or supporting it. Most of the things that happen are in person-to-person conversations and unrelated. The theme is just a backdrop.

Satoshi was a coke whore who came up with a better thing, crack. Addiction is just the word for loving things other than a specific person anyway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18993476 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18993476)
http://www.policymic.com/articles/10959/fbi-drug-cartels-use-bank-of-america-to-launder-money (http://www.policymic.com/articles/10959/fbi-drug-cartels-use-bank-of-america-to-launder-money)
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/05/31/will-treasury-hire-the-guy-who-allowed-jp-morgan-help-iran-launder-money/ (http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/05/31/will-treasury-hire-the-guy-who-allowed-jp-morgan-help-iran-launder-money/)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/21/jp-morgan-chase-closes-vatican-bank-account.html (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/21/jp-morgan-chase-closes-vatican-bank-account.html)

Nothing to see here.

Keep in mind that even if TPTB decide to "do something" about BTC, what would they do?  BTC operates on a distributed network with open source software; it can't be shut down.

the only thing i see that they could do is make exchaning to fiat difficult (potentially very) but, even then - not every country would do it, so they exchanges could operate there. say BTC to japanese yen THEN to euro/USD or whatnot.

Yup, all they could do is outlaw the exchange of BTC to fiat currencies.  That isn't such a bad thing if you think about it.  Yes it puts an end to the exchange rate speculators on MtGox but so what?  You would no longer have a real reference to the USD or other fiat currencies.  So what?

We need to get away from thinking in terms of "Oh boy I have $2000 worth of BTC!  I can't wait to convert it to USD and spend it on something!"  The path ahead for BTC is for it to have its value anchored in real goods and services.

Exchanging it with USD is just a crutch and keeps BTC mired in the realm of conspiracy theories and other kookiness.

Plus there are too many other things to exchange BTC to that this would not be a hindrance.

Decentralization of exchanges will make it effectively impossible to prevent exchange into anything…no bank accounts even necessary.  But, government could declare it illegal to exchange it for good or services, fiat included.  That would mean that only people and businesses willing to ignore such a law would continue to deal with Bitcoin.  But such a move would would ultimately weaken government.  Hence I doubt outright banning of Bitcoin is the path they will take.  They will try to marginalize it or even co-opt it through various means (regulations, four horsemen, embrace and extend, etc).

I also believe that Bitcoin is protected by the free speech provisions in the US constitution's 1st amendment.  So, while laws could be passed, the US government's own constitution makes such laws invalid.  And, regardless of any law or constitution on this planet, no person has any right to deem Bitcoin, or the use of it in trade, illegal or to persecute those that voluntarily choose to use it.

I agree generally. Two things:

• the US constitution? as far as I can tell this heart of your country is already being trampled upon substantially. I don't see it as a hindrance to "combatting enemies of freedom and security".
• "embrace & extend"? oh yeah baby, I'd just love to see central banks around the world setup mining farms, be it for bitcoin or for some newly invented ReserveCoin... not gonna happen.

Hmmmm... unfortunately, the US government doesn't really give a flying rat's ass about the 1st Amendment. Not only is there a Patriot Act, but there's also a Patriot Act II, which effectively makes it illegal to discuss any cases under the Patriot Act.

Also, while the bitcoin community might be a bit "US-heavy", the US is but one government that might be tempted to do something about this. I, for one, am a lot more interested in what approach the Chinese government will take.

Government regulation isn't a make-or-break situation for Bitcoin, as it can't be broken that way. But it certainly is a make-or-not make kind of situation, if you know what I mean. All it would take would be for China to express the slightest of interests in using Bitcoin as a hedge, and we're off to the races!

Uh-oh.  A black helicopter just flew low over my house.  Better put on the aluminum foil hat.  (Tin foil is for pussies).

Well said.

these guys are morons.

They may not be as dumb as you think. They know what they are doing, they are spreading FUD.

Don't steal, defraud, launder money, manipulate markets or setup ponzi schemes,

The banks hate competition.

Lol!

actually, you're totally right.

and that dude who said the stuff about the paycheck is right too.

Wait a second. You can buy bitcoins from a number of exchanges by making a cash deposit at a chase branch. Doesn't that make chase complicit in all of this?

Hm... I was thinking, should someone of us inquiry about the details about their 'software program' to see what methods they've actually used (unless it's already in the open), to further embarass them when we see their program is basically useless ?

to me, the entire presentation was just a lot of mumbo jambo..

I felt sorry about idiots paying those lazy, incompetent, self-proclaimed experts money for their services. Judging by the quality of this presentation, it's essentially a scam.

And sure enough they've closed comments on the youtube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGEppgLna8U

Also, their own website, www.lgscout.com, is hosted on Cloudflare, which as of today is the same hosting service that wikileaks uses.

Lol! ::)

‎"Most bankers are decent, honorable people." according to JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon. I think I love psychopaths who smoke crack!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100587.msg1098252#msg1098252 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100587.msg1098252#msg1098252)

Yes, very decent people:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2174785/HSBC-scandal-Britains-biggest-bank-let-drug-gangs-launder-millions--faces-640million-fine.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18704603

Just figured we could report the channel to youtube.

Would any of these fit?



Could it be dubbed as 'Hate Speech Against a Protected Group' ? LOL.

hahaha, awesome. make a t-shirt!

Let me put this quote from Lord Acton here:




http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/acton_quote_b723


Believe it or not, he is the same guy who came up with:


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton

Banks aren't the problem, coercitive power is.

Yeah but banks don't fuckin' help.

no, banks ARE the problem.

No, they do as everyone else: they try to use the power to their advantages (and they succeed at it better than most).

They were a french economist who once said: "L'Etat est cette gande fiction à travers laquelle chacun essaie de vivre au dépend de tout le monde"

(which translates to: "The State is this big illusion with wich everyone is trying to live at the expenses of everybody else").

THAT is the problem my friends. Yes I hate banks because they are suckers who ruined everyone. But I know how they managed that.

depends on where you put CB's into that scheme.  personally, i place them closer if not within the banking system itself moreso than on the gov't side of things.  here in the US, the Fed slid itself into the equation right before Christmas 1913 while much of Congress was adjourned but that doesn't excuse every politician since whose figured out how to exploit them for their own benefits as well.

Yes, I do agree it's an incestuous relation they have, politicians and banksters :/

oh really?  so we're getting reverse cancellations?  sweet!  :D

Fixed.

hah! awesome, now banks will have to think twice in order not to loose their valuable relationships to bitcoin businesses ;)

Since they removed comments from that video, they were probably embarassed and unhappy with the comments they received.

However, this had me thinking:

Apparently they've built a 500m USD data centre.

What do you think of the possibility of chase bank wanting to spend a lot of money to destroy bitcoin with computional power alone ? Do you see any scenarios where they could succeed in doing this ?

What if they gained 51% or more of the network hash rate?

There's some information about this here:
http://gavintech.blogspot.no/2012/05/neutralizing-51-attack.html

It seems if someone was throwing enough money at the problem that the bitcoin network could effectively be halted by a 51% attack.

Do you people think that any banks sees bitcoin as a large enough threat to throw millions of dollars at it to make a 51% attack happen ? As I see it, it's not impossible to do, but they would need to hire some operators and devs that really understands bitcoin and that's willing to do this for hire. Also, what if said bank is catched doing something like this, how damaging would it be ?

Would we have any kind of countermeasures against this, and is there any pre-warning systems in place ?

Is this a real threat, or just a theoretical one ?

Seems like they have trillions of USDs in assets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase

Thoughts?

With 10 millions $ they can do a 51% attack and fuck bitcoin

They own the media too, so the ungeeked (most of the world) would not find out.

Then they would call the four knights of the infocalypse on bitcoin and the public would be "omg let's hope they arrest that bitcoin guy, have you heard for what bitcoin is used????"

I suppose I see their concern in the video but there were a couple interesting points:

1.  Bitcoin is tied to hosting companies...  Obviously fale.
2.  Bitcoin is a ZOMG HUGE threat.  With it's 5K of points VS Money Laundering's 210K points, yeah *coughs*.
3.  Just because the servers are tied together with so-called illicit activities of other criminal sites doesn't make BTC criminal.  Maybe "people" just picked really bad hosting providers.

But yeah it just sounds like again they're spreading doubt and so forth and really don't seem to understand or even try to view the other side of the coin - instead only the pretense that because BTC is tied to seemingly criminal activity that thus, it *must* defacto be a bad thing.

Well obviously they aren't going to want to drive the price up with hype until they've picked up a big stash of coins, duh...

-MarkM-

LOL  how would the company even know the consultant simply copied the wallet.dat onto a usb drive ?